30. And so much labor has been
spent by men on the beauty of expression here spoken of, that not
only is it not our duty to do, but it is our duty to shun and
abhor, many and heinous deeds of wickedness and baseness which
wicked and base men have with great eloquence recommended, not with
a view to gaining assent, but merely for the sake of being read
with pleasure. But may God avert from His Church what the prophet
Jeremiah says of the synagogue of the Jews: “A wonderful and
horrible thing is committed in the land: the prophets prophesy
falsely, and the priests applaud them with their hands;19531953 “And the priests bear rule by
their means.” (A.V.) and my
people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end
thereof?”19541954Jer. v. 30,
31 (LXX.). O
eloquence, which is the more terrible from its purity, and the more
crushing from its solidity! Assuredly it is “a hammer that
breaketh the rock in pieces.” For to this God Himself has by
the same prophet compared His own word spoken through His holy
prophets.19551955Jer. xxiii. 29. God
forbid, then, God forbid that with us the priest should applaud the
false prophet, and that God’s people should love to have it so.
God forbid, I say, that with us there should be such terrible
madness! For what shall we do in the end thereof? And assuredly
it is preferable, even though what is said should be less
intelligible, less pleasing, and less persuasive, that truth be
spoken, and that what is just, not what is iniquitous, be listened
to with pleasure. But this, of course, cannot be, unless what is
true and just be expressed with elegance.

31. In a serious assembly,
moreover, such as is spoken of when it is said, “I will praise
Thee among much people,”19561956Ps. xxxv. 18. no pleasure is derived from that
species of eloquence which indeed says nothing that is false, but
which buries small and unimportant truths under a frothy mass of
ornamental words, such as would not be graceful or dignified even
if used to adorn great and fundamental truths. And something of
this sort occurs in a letter of the blessed Cyprian, which, I
think, came there by accident, or else was inserted designedly with
this view, that posterity might see how the wholesome discipline of
Christian teaching had cured him of that redundancy of language,
and confined him to a more dignified and modest form of eloquence,
such as we find in his subsequent letters, a style which is admired
without effort, is sought after with eagerness, but is not attained
without great difficulty. He says, then, in one place, “Let us
seek this abode: the neighboring solitudes afford a retreat
where, whilst the spreading shoots of the vine trees, pendulous and
intertwined, creep amongst the supporting reeds, the leafy covering
has made a portico of vine.”19571957 Cyprian, ad Donat. Ep.
i. There is wonderful fluency and
exuberance of language here; but it is too florid to be pleasing to
serious minds. But people who are fond of this style are apt to
think that men who do not use it, but employ a more chastened
style, do so because they cannot attain the former, not because
their judgment teaches them to avoid it. Wherefore this holy man
shows both that he can speak in that style, for he has done so
once, and that he does not choose, for he never uses it
again.